Hello, the episode you're about to listen to is part of a multi-part series introducing an overview

of Japanese history.

This is a repeat of one of the original projects the History of Japan podcast was built on,

and is intended to serve as an update and supplement to these original works.

After 10 years, my hope is to return to this approach and to do it a little bit better,

given the skills that I have improved in the intervening years.

If you haven't been doing so already, you should listen to these episodes sequentially,

starting with episode 501.

Without any further ado, enjoy the episode.

Hello and welcome to the history of Japan podcast, episode 534, the Imperial Democracy.

Today, Japan is a functioning democracy, albeit a somewhat messy one, though, to be fair,

most democracies are.

And particularly in my own country, we have a habit of giving ourselves all the credit for that as a result of the American-led occupation of the country, which took place after World War II.

And to be clear, for our its faults, which we will get into, the occupation of Japan most

definitely did help usher in Japan's modern democracy.

But I also think that we Americans, in what is to be fair, something of a time-honored tradition

over here, tend to give ourselves a little bit too much credit in emphasizing the occupation.

The reality is that, much as was the case with post-war Germany, part of the reason that post-war Japan's democracy succeeded was that there was a pre-war example to point to.

Despite a largely anti-democratic constitution, set up by a government run by powerful,

unelected, and unaccountable autocrats, Imperial Japan did enjoy a brief period of democratic success,

known to history as the Taisho democracy.

That name comes from the Taisho Emperor, who succeeded his illustrious father Meiji after the latter's death in 1912.

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